Lucknow: Team India, the only unbeaten team in the ODI World Cup so far, managed a modest 229/9 against England here on Sunday.
Shubman Gill fell for 9, Virat Kohli registered his first World Cup duck and Shreyas Iyer made a laboured 4 (off 16 balls) as the home team, asked to bat first, found themselves in trouble at 40/3 in 12 overs.
In-form captain Rohit Sharma settled down to play yet another brilliant knock (89 off 101 balls, 10×4, 3×6), steadying the rocky boat with a 91-run partnership with KL Rahul (39).
Having failed to open his account in India’s campaign-opener against Australia, Rohit has subsequently had scores of 131 (vs Afghanistan), 86 (vs Pakistan), 48 (vs Bangladesh), 46 (vs New Zealand) and 89 (vs South Africa).
Suryakumar Yadav justified his inclusion in the XI in Hardik Pandya’s absence, adjusting well to a pitch with aided spinners and stroking his way to a fluent 49 off 47 balls.
But India looked to be 25-30 runs short in the end, even though it may not be that simple a chase for England who have lost 4 out of 5 games.
